Light Brings Salt
Volume 3, Issue 20 May 15, 2005
Dedicated to the Systematic Exposition of the Word of God
A
Radical Antagonism--The Bible and Secular Worldviews
Dr. Albert Mohler
"It
need not further be denied," argued James Orr, "that between this view
of the world involved in Christianity, and what is sometimes called 'the modern
view of the world' there exists a deep and radical
antagonism." James Orr observed this 'deep and radical antagonism' over a
century ago. Can we possibly fail to see it now?
As
Christians, we are unavoidably engaged in a great battle of worldviews--a
conflict over the most basic issues of truth and meaning. A worldview that
starts with the existence and sovereign authority of the self-revealing God of
the Bible will be diametrically opposed to worldviews that deny God or engage
in what we might call 'defining divinity down.'
At
the heart of this controversy lies the irreducible obstacle of biblical
authority. As a matter of fact, it may be impossible to overestimate the true
depth of postmodern antipathy to the Bible--at least to the Bible as an
authoritative revelation from God.
Just
consider what the modern secular mind confronts in the Bible. At the
foundational level, the Bible makes a "totalizing" claim to truth. In
the terminology of postmodern academic discourse, this means that the Bible
claims to present absolute and non-negotiable truth that effectively trumps all
other authorities. In an intellectual context of personal autonomy and
individual self-expression, this appears to represent an unfair imposition of
authority and a violation of the contract theory that lies at the heart of the
modern experiment. We can "contract" with the Bible to serve as a
guide, but that contract is open to constant renegotiation.
And
the Bible contains so much material that runs against the moral sense of a
largely-secularized society. Let's just be honest and admit right up front that
the Bible pulls no punches and leaves no room for a public relations effort to
clean up the dust storm. The Bible begins with a straight-forward declaration
of divine creation, complete with a divine design for every aspect of the
created order. Then, we confront the creation of human beings as made in the
image of God, and thus uniquely gifted and accountable as moral and spiritual
creatures. And, we add, human beings are made male and female to the glory of
the Creator. There it is--gender as part of the goodness of God's creation.
This is no vision of gender differences as mere social construction. Marriage
immediately follows as the divinely-designed institution for human ordering,
reproduction, sexuality, and romantic fulfillment. Marriage--the union of one
man and one woman--is presented as an objective reality constituted as a moral
covenant with legal and moral boundaries, not as a contract to be made, remade,
or unmade at will.
Then
comes sin. The third chapter of Genesis clearly fails
to meet muster in terms of modern psychotherapeutic expectations.
Responsibility for sin is laid right at human feet; and the consequences of
sin--downright repressive--are worse than draconian. Most troubling of all, sin
is presented as something that tells the truth about us--not merely the truth
about a sinful world system. From beginning to end, the Bible undermines the
modern secular worldview at its very foundation.
Those
first four words land like nitroglycerin on the modern mind: "In the
beginning, God . . . ." From that point onward, everything flows from the
fundamental reality of God's existence, power, and purpose. Creation itself is
explained as the theater for God's own glory, even as human beings, male and
female, are created in God's image. The institution of marriage is shown to be
God's gift and command, not a sociological adaptation to prevailing cultural
conditions. Humans are given responsibility as both stewards and rulers of the
earth, ordered to subdue the earth to the Creator's glory.
Of
course, to the postmodern mind, Genesis is hopelessly "speciesist"
even as (to use their language) it presents a "totalizing meta-narrative
of hegemonistic authoritarianism." In other
words, it tells us in no uncertain terms that God is God and we are not, even
as it reveals that humanity fulfills a special purpose for God's glory.
The
Pentateuch--all five books--presents an unvarnished picture of humanity's sin
and its consequences. To a culture deeply committed to a therapeutic worldview,
this is just too much. Now that sin has been banished from our moral
vocabulary, what are postmodern Americans to do with the Fall,
the giving of the Law, the sacrificial system and blood atonement? Abraham's
willingness to sacrifice Isaac is now cited by postmodern critics as the
Bible's second most egregious example of God-inspired child abuse (the first,
of course, is the cross of Christ).
The
Law is another stone of stumbling for the modern mind. Moral relativism rules
the field of postmodern ethics, with laws seen as socially constructed and
needlessly oppressive instruments of subjugation. In many law schools, a
movement known as "critical legal theory" claims that laws generally
reveal hidden claims of manipulative power that should be de-constructed for
the betterment of all humankind. Thus, consistent with the postmodernist's
complete embrace of subjectivity, laws exist to be endlessly renegotiated and
reinterpreted.
Of
course, one of the most cherished maxims of the postmodern mind is the
so-called "death of the author." The reader, not the author of a text
is the ruling authority. Put simply, the postmodernist believes that the text
means what the reader says it means, not what the author intended. Jump from
that to this: "You shall be careful therefore to do as the Lord your God
has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that
you may live, and that it might go well with you, and that you may live long in
the land that you shall possess." [Deuteronomy 5:32-33] So much for
subjectivity, reinterpretation, and renegotiation! The postmodernist demands a
hermeneutic of suspicion, demanding that the text meet his expectations. The Bible sets down a hermeneutic of submission
as God demands obedience from His people--nothing less.
The
Bible presents the living God, Creator of the entire cosmos, as a speaking God
who addresses His people with authoritative revelation. "Did any people
ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have
heard, and still live?" [Deuteronomy 4:33] As
The
Lord does not invite His covenant people to speculate about His character, His
power, or His purpose. He demands total obedience, even as He reveals his
saving purpose and His sets down covenant. "I am the Lord your God, who
brought you out of the
The
rest of the Old Testament continues the pattern and widens the divide. God
elects
To
these must be added claims of miracles, supernatural occurrences, prophets, and
impositions of law. All this amounts to one great obstacle for so many modern
people, whose worldview is so firmly established in secular terms that the
Bible seems more of a problem than a solution.
And what of the New Testament?
Instead of refuting the Old Testament, the New Testament fulfills the Old,
pushing the envelope of secular suspicion even further. Now we confront the
great claim of the incarnation--that Jesus the Christ is fully God and fully
man. Miracles are documented, the teaching of Jesus is presented in full force,
and the Gospel is laid before our eyes.
Then
come the cross and the empty tomb. God's determinative
plan to save His people from sin come to a climax in the suffering and death of
Christ, presented as God's plan set into action before the creation of the
earth. The empty cross points to the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead, and the truth claims of the Gospel
contradict any effort to reduce Jesus to a mere teacher or guide, a social
activist or a proto-therapist.
The
church is established as God's people on earth; an eschatological people
eventually drawn from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. And then,
looming in the future, lies judgment. The realities of
Heaven and Hell are presented as dual destinations for humanity, and the wrath
of God is promised to be poured out upon sinners, even as the mercy of God is
extended to all who have come to Christ by faith. The way to salvation is
narrow; the road to destruction is wide. There is but one Savior and one way of
salvation.
All
this is just too much for the postmodern mind to handle. A "deep and
radical antagonism" separates the Bible and our postmodern culture. But
then, since the Fall that antagonism has always
existed, separating obedience to God's truth from the demand for human
autonomy.
Christians
are often perplexed by resistance to the Bible and to the Gospel. We tend to
distance ourselves from the reality that the Bible sounds so exceedingly
strange to modern and postmodern ears. We underestimate the distance of the
divide between biblical Christianity and secular worldviews.
All
this should remind us of our constant evangelistic and apologetic task--and of
the fact that salvation is all by grace. After all, it's not that we were smart
enough to wade through all this and emerge as believers. Instead, our eyes were
opened so that we would see. That radical antagonism James Orr was talking
about isn't overcome by force of argument and persuasion alone, but by grace.
As we engage in the controversies and debates of this age, we had better keep
that great fact always in the forefront of our thinking.